


the planets don't know why he's holding on

by kimaracretak



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Background Polymachina, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Past Abuse, Multi, mostly happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-17 07:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11847321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Kashaw, and the long slow climb back from nothing.





	the planets don't know why he's holding on

**Author's Note:**

> title + section headers from cellar darling, 'six days'

_i. on the first day of nothing, the moon told him to go;_

He almost doesn't leave.

There's very little _to_ leave anymore, the village buildings reduced to rotting wood and the garden he had planted with his mother drowned in his new wife's fury.

But it's what there is.

The world outside Kashaw's home has never been large, but his village has never been _empty_ , and in the space where he cannot comprehend these things Vesh laughs and laughs as he sits still-silent among the wreckage and wonders how to mourn.

The one mercy — and he hesitates over calling it that — is that She doesn't make him dream. Her memories crowd his waking hours, filling in the impeccably carved holes of his loss with storms, with rage and destruction and the careful picking-apart of anything that could grow in the aftermath of the rains. He has more of Her memories than his own now.

But at night, when he sleeps, She cannot reach him so easily. Kashaw dreams of silver, molten rivers of it that pour into him and mold themselves to his shape, armouring his blood and bones and heart. Kashaw dreams of silver, burning flat paths of it that strike through forests he's never seen and cities he's never heard of, roads that would call his name if he remembered it right.

Kashaw dreams of leaving, following moonlit trails and leaving his own light behind, and when he wakes up he pretends the tears on his face are for himself.

He was raised to believe in fate and bow to Her plans, and so he goes.

 

 

_ii. on the second day of nothing, the sun begged him to leave;_

The first thing the woman who will become Kashaw's sister says to him is, "I'm not safe."

It startles a genuine laugh out of him, this crimson-skinned tiefling sitting among the broken remains of the earth elemental that had until quite recently been doing a decent job of trying to grind them into paste thinking she might know about _safety_ on the open road.

"Join the club," he says. When you're married to a death goddess who may or may not still be living inside your head, you sort of learn to expect the worst at all times.

She plants her staff in the rubble and hauls herself to her feet, the runes under her hands flaring silver in the moonlight. "No," she says. "I mean I'm not safe to be _around_. There are ... things. Hunting me."

Kash snorts in disbelief. "Again: join the club."

It wasn't, actually, supposed to be an invitation, but he learns very quickly that Zahra very rarely does what she is supposed to do.

There's other things he learns about her, of course. He learns that she has a clever dry wit and very little fear despite the darkness in her eyes. He learns that she has no idea how to cook and very little qualms about eating whatever she catches as quickly as she can.

He learns that he does not want her to leave, and he hates himself for getting attached. Thirteen years alone have taught him the value of having no connections beyond the compassion needed to heal, have kept Vesh quiet, and sometimes he thinks the only right thing to do would be to slip away in the night, leave Zahra to herself where she's in much less danger of falling off the cliff edge of his friendship.

Other nights, he watches her watch the moon and remembers the silver-dappled paths that lead him forth in silence from his home, and on those nights he thinks that the only right thing is to spend all the time he has with his sister until Vesh takes them both.

They reach Vasselheim suddenly, after nearly a year together, on a rare day when the clouds flee the skies over the Timberlands and Kashaw feels the unexpected sun might burn him to dust if he isn't careful. He is not used to light being unwelcome, but every beat of the sun's rays into his scarred skin seems to murmur _turn back, turn back._

Zahra, too, eyes the city walls with trepidation. People tend to avoid Kash, if they can help it, something of Vesh's aura clinging to him no matter how many spells of light he casts. But Zahra's hellish ancestry is harder to hide: she has little patience for disguises when they're not absolutely necessary, and no healing spells to offset the superstitious prejudice still present in most of the villages they pass through.

"We don't have to go in," Zahra says, in a tone that let Kash know she was fully aware that they _did_ , unless they wanted to risk running dangerously close to entirely depleting their supplies.

"Yeah, we do," Kash says, because it's usually him that gets to say the unpleasant things.

It almost doesn't matter. They're hardly fifteen feet past the gates, the mix of divine energies saturating stone and plant alike scraping uneasily against the core of Vesh's power in his heart, when they're stopped by another tiefling.

Zahra brightens, colder than the sun. "Let me, darling," she murmurs, stepping in front of him.

Kash snorts. Z talks a better game than he does, but he's pretty sure they've started an equal number of fights.

"You walk with darkness, sister," the other tiefling says, before Zahra can even open her mouth.

"He's proven himself more my sibling than you," Zahra retorts, and Kash can practically feel the air around them vibrating with the force of her anger. "Who are you?"

The tiefling crosses her arms, and though she speaks to Zahra, her eyes never leave Kash's face. "I am Huntmaster Vanessa Cyndrial. Head of the Slayer's Take, and protector of this city. And I will not let your friend enter without some ... precautions."

"Precautions?" Zahra echoes in disbelief. "I trust him, and if you would call me sister you —"

"Do you trust his god?"

Zahra falls silent. Kash thinks of everything they've left unsaid, and sighs.

"She doesn't," he says, resting a careful hand on Z's wrist. He can feel her pulse, hot and thready with impatient shame. "Neither do I, for what it's worth."

Vanessa narrows her eyes, her glare sharp sun-bright like maybe if she can flay him deep enough he'll leave.

But Kash has stared into far crueler suns, and that without his sister at his side.

"Very well," Vanessa finally sighs. "You will submit yourself to a trial before the Knowing Mistress and her lady, and we shall see if you may stay. Or you may leave, now."

It sounds so much like his wife's first promise to him that he almost hesitates. But there's a spark of curiosity in Z's eyes that he hasn't seen in far too long, and Vanessa clearly wants them to leave.

"Fine. We'll take your fucking test."

Kash really, _really_ hates Vasselheim.

 

 

_iii. on the third day of nothing, the planets screamed with rage;_

One thing he never tells Zahra about is the anger. 

He could give plenty of reasons for that. It's about his past, and he and Z don't talk much about that ever since their pledge that if one of them identifies someone as a hunter, the other fights without question. It's never come up, even in the silences where it could have but where trust took hold instead.

But the truth is, even now he isn't sure how much anger is his and how much is his wife's.

Vasselheim's unnatural light under the cloud layer doesn't help. Thorbir doesn't help, wearing his own anger like a lazy ill-fitting costume.  _Vox Machina_ doesn't help, messy-blunt like they've never known what it is to have no one.

He misses Z. He wants to look between her and Keyleth and raise his eyebrows, _like, really?_ and see her grin with just the tips of her fangs, _yeah, really, but she's fucking hot_. He wants to hang back with her while they watch Vax flit from shadow to shadow, until she finally gives him the permission to say something he would never think to ask for.

(Okay, and he wants to see her punch the dwarf, and maybe help. Kash knows when he's just trying to distract himself, but fucked if he's gonna let go of _that_ delightful image.)

And it's not that he starts to like them. It's just that Vax has a sister who he loves, and Keyleth is vicious wreathed in summer light, and Tiberius, for all he whines, is someone he can fight next to, and —

Z's taught him a lot about the usefulness of directing his anger, even if she doesn't know all the causes of it. He hadn't realised she's taught him how to care for other people besides her.

He hadn't expected that realisation to make him angry all over again: Keyleth's light and Vax's shadow and the awful _care_ that's struck through all three of them.

He wants to blame it all on Vesh, on a god's jealousy, but that would be far too easy.

And, anyway, when Kash finally tumbles exhausted into the bed at the Take that night with the taste of Keyleth's mouth still lingering on his lips, he knows his wife is far more amused than angry.

 

 

_iv. on the fourth day of nothing, the devil said hello_

Fifteen years after his wedding night, nearly to the day, he sees a woman from his wife's memories.

Fifteen years, and he's so used to forcing himself to think of those memories as dreams that his first thought is that the woman standing over Vex's body is Vesh Herself, drawn to the largest rush of Her power that he's ever called forth.

But then the woman smiles, and he _remembers_ — remembers the sweet-sharp taste of mortal power, so different from divine, remembers —

He had never thought Vesh capable of _love_.

The Raven Queen smiles, and Kash wonders which of the hells he's just brought to life.

But the world doesn't end. The shadows twist around them, Vex breathes again. When her hand falls open, he sees feathers resting in her palm: red from Zahra's offering, green from Keyleth's plea.

Black, and black again, from Vax's bargain and the twins' new Lady.

He lets Keyleth draw him away from where Z and Vax are still fussing over Vex, and lets her talk of life, and kisses her cheek and realises consciously for the first time how very much he wants to believe her.

But Kash cannot ignore the voice in his other ear, no longer a memory and no longer cold.

 _Oh, Kashaw_ , his wife whispers. _Maybe you will finally do to them what I failed to do to Her._

 _Speak to a god_ , he thinks numbly as Vax comes over to add his own kiss of thanks, _and you never know how many might answer._

For weeks after, he wakes achingly hard from dreams of Vesh — Vesh in Keyleth's body, Vesh in Vax's body, Vesh wearing the corpse of every person he ever failed to save — and can't think anything but that he deserves exactly this.

 

 

_v. on the fifth day of nothing, he felt his skin dissolve_

Keyleth corners him the night before he does the stupidest thing he's ever done and goes off to fight a fucking dragon.

Well, technically it's the night before they _both_ go off to fight a fucking dragon, but considering Keyleth and the idiots she hangs out with (including, his brain helpfully reminds him, one who's so besotted with Z she's practically his sister too), it's not the stupidest thing she's ever done.

Actually, maybe the stupidest thing he's ever done is getting involved with Keyleth and her friends at all.

Keyleth, who sort of has him backed into a literal corner in a part of Whitestone Castle he'd hoped no one else knew about, who has had him backed into the corner for definitely more than a minute now, and who has definitely not said anything about _why_.

"So," he finally says, when she's still done nothing but bite her lip for another minute. "Is this some 'we're all gonna die, time to torment Kash again' thing?"

"No!" she squeaks, with genuine horror. "No, it's just ... this is awkward, a bit. And we're not gonna die, by the way, but you. And Vax."

"Me and Vax," he repeats. He hadn't seen Vax since their sparring session that afternoon.

"We're kind of ... a thing," Keyleth admits, twisting her fingers in her skirts. "But not, like, an exclusive thing, you know?"

Truthfully, neither of those are particularly surprising bits of information, but Kash can't piece together why Keyleth's telling _him_ , of all people. "Okay? Congratulations? I have no relationship advice so please gods don't start with the asking?"

Keyleth huffs in frustration. " _No_ , you're not — oh, this is _stupid_." She gives up on words then, settles for grabbing Kash's collar, hauling him flush against her and planting a thorough kiss on his lips.

He's so surprised she has no trouble pushing her tongue past his lips, licking into his mouth like she wants to claim him entirely, and when she finally pulls back, he barely manages a breathless, "What?"

"Come to bed with us?" she asks, no hesitation at all now despite the blush colouring her cheeks. "Me and Vax. I saw the way you looked at him when you were sparring, and he's always — and Vex is with Zahra and Grog went to the house of lady favours and —"

Kash decides then that kissing her again is much preferable to hearing how everyone else has grouped up for what he still suspects might be their last night alive.

"Vax is on board with this? With me?" he asks when they separate. Not that Vax could hold a candle to Vesh in the jealous lover department, but, hey, if they're going to die tomorrow (they're going to die tomorrow), might as well take the extra joy in pissing Her off.

"It was his idea," Keyleth says. "I said I'd talk to you, because we have, you know, history."

"History of being shit at talking?"

Keyleth half-shrugs. "And kissing. Wait. No, not at being shit at kissing, of —"

Kash groans and drops his forehead to her shoulder. "I'm going to kill you."

Keyleth tilts his chin up with a finger, forcing him to meet her smug grin. "That's kind of the idea."

She drags him off towards her room before he can even start coming up with an answer, leaving him to wonder what sort of person he's become.

Something new, he thinks, something _else_ , after so much has been burned away under Keyleth's hands, Vax's lips, Zahra's laugh. It's not as disturbing as it would have been, once.

 

 

_vi. on the sixth day of nothing, salvation was announced_

They don't die.

Or maybe they do, he doesn't ask, but they're all standing (still, again) amid the fires and smoke of Emon by the time it's all over.

"Hey, cutie," Vax says, slinging an arm over his shoulder and pulling him from the pile of Vex-Zahra-Pike that seems to have engulfed him. "Promised I wouldn't get dead."

Kash freezes for half a second as he feels the static warmth of Vax's healing magic ripple through him. It's still a foreign sensation, one not much more kind than Vesh's irritated murmur at the back of his head about Vax taking over _Her_  job.

 _Shut up_ , he thinks at Her, and then, "Shut up," he says to Vax, because there's nothing else _to_  say. Vax just laughs, like he's so used to surviving impossible shit that he doesn't care anymore that he _keeps_  surviving it. "Is it over, then?" Kash pretends he doesn't notice Vax is still holding him close.

He's not entirely sure either of them would still be standing otherwise, and besides, the only person likely to give him shit for it is Z, and she's too busy making out with Pike to notice.

One day he'll wonder why the fact that he got roped into this _obnoxious_  web of relationships is one of the least strange things about his life.

"Over for now," Vax says, and Kash suddenly realises there's a possibility he may have been staring. "We need to deal with Raishan, and _soon_  —" he glances at Keyleth who, despite her taller frame, is nearly entirely hidden by Vex's hair "— but she's too much for us right now."

Kash pauses. Looks at how thoroughly wrecked Vox Machina are, looks at the green threads of arcane magic webbing caught in the lava around Thordak's lair, and comes up with only one conclusion. "Dickhead." He knees Vax in the nuts, dumping the very last of his healing energy into him before he's actually decided to do so. "You just fought her right now, didn't you?"

"It was the right thing to do at the time," Vax says, quietly but with absolute conviction. He's still keeping an eye on Keyleth and Vex.

"Didn't say it wasn't."

"I know."

Vax's arm slips lower, fingertips pressing into the spaces where he left marks last night. Kash breathes through the momentary throb of pain, the reminder that he's _alive_. They're all alive. "Why do I hang out with you guys?"

"'Cause." Vax's grin isn't as wide as usual, but it's present, and Kash feels a little lighter for it. They did good today. Enough, for the moment. "You love us."

"Liar."

They both know he's really, really not.


End file.
